


Branded by Vows

by Galadriel1010



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Deep Roads, Dwarf Culture & Customs, F/F, Fifth Blight, Orlais, Pre-Slash, Worldbuilding, rivals to friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:07:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27962009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galadriel1010/pseuds/Galadriel1010
Summary: Grey Wardens Serada Aeducan and Natia Brosca endure the Fifth Blight in the mountains of Orlais. When what should be a routine patrol into the Deep Roads goes downhill fast, they have to rely on each other and their fellow wardens more than they ever hoped to need each other.
Relationships: Aeducan/Brosca (Dragon Age)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3
Collections: Mistletoe Exchange 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inquisitor_tohru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitor_tohru/gifts).



Warden Serada had thought that the sweltering summer that smothered the Emprise du Lion was foul enough, but the icy chill that followed it, bleaching all life, colour and warmth from the harsh landscape and leaving even the rushing falls cold and grey as ill-tempered steel almost made her long for the heat. Almost. The Fifth Blight was raging across Ferelden and, although the Horde had yet to cross the Frostbacks, the surfacers muttered about the fiercer storms and sharper winds that battered the landscape. Serada huddled miserably by a brazier in the deepest corner of the room, as far from the door and as deep under the mountain as she could get and glared balefully at the sliver of silver light she could still see in the doorway.

Her glare darkened even further when a small group of Grey Wardens entered her sanctuary, boisterous and loud as they stomped snow off their boots and congratulated each other on a good training session. They spotted her immediately, and all but one turned away to take the stairs up to the Wardens’ Camp without a word. The other one, to Serada’s increasing annoyance, dodged between the stacked crates and barrels to join her by the brazier. Natia’s cheeks were flushed and pink from the cold, and her mouth was set in a grim smile of satisfaction. She slung her bow and quiver off her shoulder onto a crate. “Serada.”

“Brosca,” Serada returned, and the straight lines of the other woman’s casteless brand creased in a frown. “Hit anything yet?”

The smile was gone completely, replaced by a far more familiar moue of distaste. “Plenty, thanks. Seen your sword lately?”

“It never leaves my side,” Serada snapped.

“No, I’d noticed. Perhaps if you used it once in a while, people might believe you’re the great warrior you claim to be.”

Incensed, she took a step towards the other woman. “I am Champion of Orzammar’s Provings, Commander of her army; I led more missions to the Deep Roads than any other dwarf. I don’t need to prove myself to anyone, and I definitely don’t need to train with farm labourers and thugs.”

“You were,” Natia corrected her, the quiet utterance like a silverite blade. “You are a Grey Warden, and you can’t intimidate the darkspawn into letting you beat them.”

Serada could only splutter out her outrage for a few seconds. “You… you… how dare you?” she demanded. “You…”

She was about to descend into furious and borderline obscene Old Dwarven when they were interrupted by the return of another group of their fellow Wardens, who stomped through to the stairs without sparing them more than a glance. They were large, boorish men, some still wearing ridiculous masks as part of their armour, loud and graceless as they came, and when Serada glanced over at Natia she found her own disdain mirrored there. As the footsteps faded away, they turned back to the brazier, familiar argument forgotten. “You’re right,” Natia said quietly. “There’s no pride in besting them.”

“All we need to best is the darkspawn. What the rest of them think about us is irrelevant.”

Whatever Natia intended to say to that, Serada never knew. She’d just drawn breath to speak when heavy footsteps on the stairs disturbed her, and one of the Warden recruits rounded the corner. “Warden Natia,” he called out, Orlesian accent thick enough to mangle her name completely, “are you down here?”

“Yes. Why?”

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Warden Constable Blackwall wishes to see you immediately.”

Her eyes skittered to the stairs. “I’ll be there.”

“Immediately.”

“I heard you,” she snapped. Before he could say anything else, she’d snatched up her bow and quiver and glanced back at Serada. “Are you coming?”

Serada stepped closer to the brazier. “He only summoned you.”

“Fine.”

Natia scurried off up the stairs, but the other Warden stayed behind and watched Serada. She did her best to ignore him, until he was next to her and looming over her. “Did you want something?” she asked in the end, without looking up at him. “Or do you just have nothing better to do?”

He laughed. “They say you were a princess, and when you talk I can believe it. Why would a princess volunteer to join the Wardens?”

“I didn’t volunteer,” she told him sweetly, allowing a smile to dance across her face as she stared into the flames. “I murdered my brother and was conscripted out of jail.” Serada finally looked up at him and found him staring down at her with dawning horror. “Who did you murder to get here?”

“No one! I did volunteer.” He took a step away from her and folded his arms across his chest. She never could reckon human ages, but he looked young. Young and foolish. “I was just going to say, I know some dwarves from my village…”

She scoffed. “Then you do not know any dwarves. Unless you have been to Orzammar, you have merely met well-proportioned humans.” The expanse of sky so close above tugged at her and she clenched her fists. “No one who passes the Hall of Heroes is a dwarf.”

He gestured at her. “You’re here though.”

Serada gritted her teeth. “So I am.” The silence pressed and still he didn’t take the hint. It was excruciating being unable to simply order him away, but one glance at his armour was enough to remind her that here she was nothing, an outcast outranked by this lumbering child. Torn between tolerating his presence and braving the looming sky, she eventually dragged herself from the brazier and made for the door, where she peered out at the clouds. They were heavy and tinged with yellow. Someone had told her that meant more snow. She considered risking it, running for the inn in the small hamlet just down the hill, but the sky drove her back inside to where the boy was still watching her.

“Is it snowing again?” he asked. “Warden Sergeant Fitzroy says it’s going to.”

“Not yet. How can there be more snow?”

He smiled crookedly. “There’s always more snow up in the mountains. We’ll have to watch for avalanches when spring comes.” The look on her face must have inadvertently suggested that she wanted to know what an avalanche was, so he explained in some detail.

“Why does anyone live up here,” she demanded, “when everything wants to kill you?”

“Better the landscape than my sister.”

Serada clenched her hands into fists and tried to come up with a reason not to murder him too. Luckily for him, they were interrupted by yet more footsteps on the stairs. Another messenger, summoning the pair of them up to the Warden Constable’s tent. She cursed under her breath and followed him up, shoulders high and eyes fixed firmly on the ground as they passed out from the security of the cellar into the open, overgrown courtyards of Suledin Keep.

The keep was elven, ancient, and falling apart. The villagers down in Sahrnia believed it to be haunted by spirits and demons from the days the elves ruled the Dales. They averted their eyes from its imposing bulk even as it loomed over their lives, talked of it only in dark mutterings, and when the Wardens came looking for a base for the Blight, they handed it over with nothing more than a warning and a perverse eagerness. Over the following weeks and months, the hollow shell had been filled with tents and shacks, and the beginnings of an attempt to restore it to something approaching glory, but even the humans were uncomfortable with the constant feeling of being watched by the owls, wolves, archers and halla scattered around the place, or the enormous wolf that loomed over everything, carved out of the mountain itself.

Serada glanced up at the wolf but found it obscured by the descending cloud and the first flurries of snow. Somehow, knowing it was there but being unable to see it was even worse.

Up and up through the keep they climbed, to the very top. The wind lanced through empty windows, whipping ice crystals into knives and digging into every weakness it could find. A lazy wind, the Avvar Wardens called it. One that went through you instead of round. The Avvar all had a lot of opinions on the weather. Serada had little time for anyone who mistakenly believed there was such a thing as good weather. Two of them were in the Warden Constable’s tent with Natia and an elven mage, and when Serada entered with the two Orlesians the door flap was closed behind them, marking them as quorate.

Warden Commander Blackwall was a tall man, even for a human, with a bushy beard that would have put any member of the Shaperate to shame and long hair tied back with a leather strap. He was one of the few humans in the camp who wasn’t either Orlesian or Avvar; a Free Marcher, if Serada remembered correctly, but she had little time for the regional squabbles of the surface nations. His accent was different, he didn’t wear a mask, and some of the Orlesians resented his command, but he wasn’t Ferelden. The map on his table showed Ferelden, Orlais and some of the nearer Free Marcher nations. Serada had once studied her father’s map in his study as a girl and had never understood. She glared at it now, and her mood didn’t improve when she caught Natia’s eye and returned her smile automatically. The table was set lower than usual and in front of Natia, overlaying the larger map, was one of the highlands of the Emprise du Lion. The keep and the quarry below it were marked, as was the village of Sahrnia down by the river and the next village, an Avvar hold to the north west. A marker on the mountain pass indicated a patrol. Their patrol, she presumed.

Blackwall looked them over once more and looked down at Natia last. “We’ve had word from Bright Eagle Hold that they’re concerned about darkspawn activity in the area,” he said without preamble. “There’s an old Deep Roads entrance in the pass, sealed during the Second Blight. Warden Natia is taking a patrol to check on the seal, you are that patrol.” He looked around the tent, sharp eyes stilling most dissent immediately. “Natia, I’ll let you make your plans.”

“Right.” She stepped up to the table and rested her hands either side of the map, then looked around her patrol. “I don’t think you all know each other. Serada is from Orzammar like me. Gytha,” she said, indicating the elf, “is a mage from the Montsimmard Circle, recommended by First Enchanter Fiona.” There was a murmur from the Orlesian Wardens, which died down when Natia looked over at them. “Phillipe and Tomas are swordsmen from the Dales, and Jasalt and Hovard,” she said, indicating the two Avvar, “are scouts from the Arbor Wilds. This isn’t going to be a long patrol, but we’ll get to know each other better all the same.”

Her finger traced the river up the valley from below Sahrnia towards Bright Eagle. "We’ll make for Bright Eagle first to make sure everything is safe there, then double back to the Deep Roads entrance. A day up to Bright Eagle, then a day back to the seal, and from the entrance it's only a few hours back to Sahrnia. We’ll return in three days at the most. There’s been no word of bandits in the mountains since the weather set in, but if the weather turns against us, we could struggle with the final stretch up to Bright Eagle Hold.”

Hovard grunted. “This weather will clear tonight and stay fair for a few days,” he said curtly. “No storms on the horizon, we’ll get a clear run.”

Natia nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll trust your judgement on that,” she told him. “Prepare for difficult terrain all the same, but it’s not a long journey. If we are caught out, the Deep Roads will give us shelter enough.”

They fell to discussing their route and plans, what they expected to find in the Deep Roads and once they reached the seal, what supplies they would need, whilst Serada seethed. She had enough sense, at least, to wait until Natia had dismissed the patrol with instructions to meet her at the main gate the following morning, but not enough to keep her thoughts to herself completely it seemed. “What are you doing?” she demanded of Natia. “Why am I on this patrol?”

Natia carried on rolling up the map carefully. “You are on this patrol because you are a skilled warrior, whatever the rest of them think, and your Stone Sense may save our lives down there. And because I don’t trust you,” she added.

“You don’t trust me?” Serada demanded. “And so you take me with you into the Deep Roads. Do you know which seal we’re looking at?”

“It’s a day from Caridin’s Cross. Two days from Orzammar and your vengeance.” Natia smiled grimly. “So for my sister’s sake, I want you where I can see you.”

Serada slammed her hands down on the table. “We’ll be so close,” she snarled. “From there we could make a clear run through to Orzammar. I can expose Bhelen and we can forge an alliance between Orzammar and the Grey Wardens and tip the battle against the Blight.”

“You mean you can overthrow your brother and seize his throne. I’ve heard the rumours just as clearly as you have. Your brother intends to make my sister his wife, and I will not let you get in her way.”

“I told you I will look after her if…”

Natia grabbed her wrist. “And I told you that I don’t trust you, _your highness_.”

Seething, Serada pulled herself up to her full height and glared down on the other woman. “How dare you? It is an insult to the Ancestors that a brand presumes to order an Aeducan. You are an insult to the Ancestors. I demand to be released from this patrol.”

She’d pushed it too far. The Warden Constable pushed aside the tent entrance and strode in, towering over the pair of them. He glared at her, and she glared back with equal fury. “You will demand nothing, Warden,” he told her sharply. “You left all rights to any such demands behind the day you murdered your brother, and set them aside voluntarily when you took your vows. You are not a princess here. Just a recruit who has done little to justify her position.”

Serada seethed. “I commanded an army.”

“And now you command nothing. Get out of here and prepare for tomorrow’s patrol.” He pointed to the door and Serada stormed towards it. “And remember, Warden Serada, the penalty for desertion from the Grey Wardens.”

She scoffed. “It’s the same as the penalty for not deserting. Death all the same, Warden Constable.”

Indentation or line breaks would help for legibility, I got confused a bit who was speaking here 


	2. Chapter 2

They stayed overnight at Bright Eagle Hold, where the Thane took Natia aside to discuss the patrol and the darkspawn attacks, and the Hold's hunters took the rest of them into the feasting hall in the centre of the village to describe the attacks to them, and brag about their prowess in driving back the creatures. Serada clung to a mug of beer the whole night until they were taken to a house on the edge of the village, where she lay awake on her thin bedroll, listening to her fellow Wardens' snoring. She was still awake when Natia groaned in her sleep and rolled over, hand clenched into a fist. She twitched again and whimpered, and when Serada reached over to shake her shoulder she awoke with a yelp and pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, gasping at the floor.

"How do they cope?" Natia asked in a harsh whisper between panted breaths. "How do they live like this?"

"You had a dream?"

"The same dream every time. The Archdemon, it was like it..." She shuddered and turned awkwardly to sit down so she could rest her head in her hands. "It's like it can see me. See into me."

Serada shuddered. "Like it knows you."

It took a while for that to filter through to Natia. When the words sank in, she raised her head and watched Serada in the darkness, firelight casting dancing shadows across both their faces. "You've had it too?"

"It's the joining. Jasalt has had one already tonight."

Natia looked across the hall. "He went back to sleep?"

"I didn't wake him. Humans are used to them."

She smiled weakly. "Poor bastards. They say they're not like that all the time. Some have demons instead." Her hands curled into fists as she rubbed at her eyes and yawned again. "Why were you awake, anyway?"

"I can't sleep above ground. It's not safe." Serada gestured at the thin walls separating them from the leaden sky. "Anything could be out there."

Natia smiled at her, eyes unusually soft, and chuckled. "You know we're not actually going to float off into the sky? That's just a story they tell children."

"They might tell it in Dusttown," Serada said with a sniff. "I grew up meeting ambassadors from Ferelden and Orlais."

"No wonder you dislike them so much." Natia yawled again and, after a moment of blinking at the wall, lay back down. "Try to sleep, Aeducan. we have a long day ahead of us."

She huffed. "Yes, Captain."

* * *

The Deep Roads entrance was a welcome relief from the cold and the snow that had descended not long after they left Bright Eagle Hold for the return journey. Marlak and Henna, two female hunters from Bright Eagle who accompanied them as far as the site of the nearest darkspawn attack, seemed utterly unbothered by the weather, wrapped as they were in furs and well-crafted leather. Serada was as miserable as they were content. She allowed herself to glare up at the sky while Natia fumbled with the keys, then followed her inside and took up a position at the top of the stairs, one hand on her sword and eyes fixed on the darkness below. Fetid air drifted up, damp and dank and acidic with the rot of darkspawn, but the weight of the mountain above them was comforting even so close to the door. When it finally closed behind them, Serada felt safe for the first time since Aeducan Thaig.

Next to her Gytha ran a hand down her staff until the crystal at its head glowed a bright white, and her look of discomfort and the longing glance she gave the door were clearly visible. She ignored Serada's smug smile and turned back to Natia. "How far in is the seal?"

"A couple of hours walk from here. Three back up if the steps are this steep all the way." Natia ran her fingers along the fine patterns carved on the walls, looking up at them in awe. "This was a trading post, though," she said thoughtfully. "There will be a trading hall before long. Accommodations, inns..."

"It was never a big one," Serada told her. "Look at the carvings. It was a trading post for the elves of the Dales, not humans, and the main post was above Zygmunt Thaig. That's why it was sealed so early."

Gytha huffed. "Of course. After Suledin fell there would be no one here for your people to trade with. Do you know what Suledin means?" Six faces looked back at her blankly and she turned away from them. "It means 'to endure'."

"Well that was misnamed," Phillippe commented. He ignored the look Gytha shot him and traced his fingers down the carvings. "Don't dwarven halls glow?"

"The main trading post should still be lit," Serada confirmed. "We'll know it when we see it."

"Then let's press on," Natia said. "We don't want to be here still come nightfall."

As Serada had expected, the staircase descended steeply for two flights, then levelled out abruptly into an antechamber that reached up the whole of the last flight. Huge sheets of granite were set into each wall, intricately carved with runes inlaid with mosaics made from tiny, delicate metallic tiles taken from at least half a dozen Thaigs by Serada's estimate. She and Natia exchanged a look as they examined the carvings, and she shrugged in response to the unasked question. "I'm not a Shaper. Perhaps with several days and a lot of paper I could translate it. It's all about the trading post and the elves, though. If Suledin means endurance, this section probably refers to it. That rune is endurance, and that one is fortress, so that would be Suledin Keep in Old Dwarven. And that one is ruler."

"So this... wall," Gytha said, "tells the history of the elves of Suledin Keep?"

"Perhaps. Or at least of the dwarves who traded with them." The smell of damp was more intense down here, along with the skin-crawling feeling of darkspawn. "We should be on our guard once we pass these doors. If we've reached the trading post there will be many more places to hide if the seal has been broken."

It took three of them, Serada and the two Orlesians, to force the door open through the detritus littering the floor. Any sense of surprise they might have hoped to retain was lost by the grinding and the screech of a deep scratch they left on the marble floor. It was unnecessary, though, as the trading post within was untouched by darkspawn. The walls still glowed as brightly as they had the day the post was abandoned and the buildings stood with gaping doorways where wooden doors and shutters had rotted away, but every edge was muted and smoothed by the deposited limestone that flowed over it like melted wax. Stalagmites stood around the square like the long-fled residents, already more than half Serada's height, and stalactites dripped from the ceiling like chandeliers with the light from the walls gleaming off them. The others stared around in wonder, but Serada watched Natia duck into one of the nearest houses and emerge moments later shaking her head. "This wasn't a flight," she said. "They had warning. Or it's been cleared out since, I suppose."

"The post failed after the Dales fell," Serada reminded her. "It survived the Blight but not the Exalted March. The residents moved back to Zygmunt Thaig when the last traders closed up."

"And it's been undisturbed ever since?"

Hovard shook his head. "See, there are Warden marks here." He walked over to the corner of an abandoned tavern and pointed out the crude carvings that ranged down the very edge of the wall, the oldest ones buried under the flowing stone that the newer ones were carved into. "They marked when they visited to check. The gaps got bigger over the years."

"Southern Orlais hasn't been troubled by a Blight since the Towers Age." Phillipe gestured around. "The Fourth Blight did not stray so far south."

"It did down here," Serada reminded him. "Zygmunt Thaig was lost. Even Orzammar nearly fell."

Natia frowned. "I didn't know that."

"Not many people do."

"So why do you still live there?" Jasalt asked scornfully.

She laughed dryly. "How many surface Thaigs have not fallen to the darkspawn over the years? Would you abandon them all as well? Weisshaupt itself nearly fell."

He looked up at the ceiling above them and a visible shudder ran through him. "Don't you feel trapped?"

"Don't you feel exposed?" Serada turned back to Natia and nodded down the road through the town that led to another imposing set of doors still sealed tight against incursion. The Dwarves of old had taken no chances here. "That way to the Deep Roads," she said. "Another staircase down at least before we hit the granite. The seal will be in that seam. It's thin here, but the passage will be narrow and easier to close off than this limestone, and below the granite is gritstone, too easy to dig through."

Natia nodded her agreement. "The darkspawn are further in. I can feel them. I fear the seal has been breached after all, even if this post survives." She pointed down the passageway. "Serada, take the lead. Phillipe and Tomas bring up the rear. Jasalt, with Serada. Keep close together. The passages may not be runed."

The first staircase was still well-lit, and descended from limestone into pinkish marble, its finish altered by the heat that had formed it. The first landing was a small guard post, with passages stretching off into the rock on either side. Serada paused at the entrance to one of the side passages, hand on her sword, and peered into the darkness. She touched her fingers to the wall and grimaced when they came away damp.

"Come on, princess," Philippe told her, gripping her shoulder tight enough that she felt it through her mail. "There's another level to go yet."

"Coming," she told him, with another glance along the passage. "They mined here. There's marble from these passages in the Royal Palace in Orzammar."

He stared at her. "Your history records that?"

"No, I can feel it. The marble has a distinctive touch." She gave it another look, something grating against her Stone Sense still, but turned to re-join the group at the top of the next flight of stairs. This one was dark, and the light from Gytha's staff showed the sharp change from the blueish marble to the dark green granite for which the Emprise was famous just a few steps down. She trailed her fingers down the wall again and felt the same sense of wrongness. "Malvera," she whispered.

"What's that?"

"There's a corruption in the Stone." She pulled her hand away and shivered. "Limestone, chalk and marble all rot easily when the Blight touches them. Just because it is easy to build in them, doesn't mean you should."

Natia's uneasy gaze met hers. "We'll push on and seal the way behind us as we found it."

* * *

Not far into the granite band the staircase turned abruptly, more than ninety degrees until it pointed almost directly towards Orzammar. And then just as abruptly it stopped, the way sealed with a vast pair of heavy doors. All ornamentation was abandoned in favour of function, and Serada shivered at the sight. The presence of darkspawn was intense, clawing at the edges of her mind, but that couldn't explain the way the humans and Gytha had paled as they reached the door. Lyrium runes glowed across its surface, promising fire and vengeance against anyone foolish enough to attempt to breach them. When Gytha raised a hand towards the runes she recoiled almost instantly with a look of horror. "There's blood magic. A demon bound to the door..."

"The Grey Wardens have always used whatever means they could to fight the Blight," Phillipe said, although more warily than he probably hoped to sound. He reached out to the door as well but, like Gytha, stopped short. "Could they have got past the wards?"

"No. The seal has held," Gytha said firmly. She looked over at Natia again. "Can it be opened from this side?"

Natia looked it over but Serada beat her to it. "Yes. We passed the lever not far back. This technology is from before the Second Blight. Many Thaigs installed them, Orzammar still uses them. They have saved a lot of lives over the Ages."

"If it held, where are the darkspawn coming from?" Tomas asked grimly. "They are surfacing above."

Serada met Natia's eyes as a yawning horror began to fill her. "The side passage, the mine..."

They turned as one and took the stairs two at a time, but by the time they reached the corner Serada's worst fears had been confirmed. The darkspawn presence was almost overpowering, coupled with their stench and chittering screeches. She drew her sword automatically, every dark mission to the Deep Roads pressing down on her at once. "We have to drive them back," she gritted out. "If they open the doors..."

"They have already broken through," Tomas snapped. "We should make for the surface and seal them in here."

Natia shook her head. "We can seal the side passage easily enough, but you felt how many were on the other side of that door. And we've led them right to it." She already had her bow ready in front of her and gestured with it towards the stairs. "Serada, take Tomas and Hovard. We'll hold the stairs. You need to break through to the surface and get back-up to seal that side passage. Seal the whole staircase," she added quietly.

The first arrow crashed into the wall above them and Serada hefted her shield. "If we're going, we go now." She nodded to Natia. "Atrast tunsha, salroka."

"Stone guide you, Princess. Now go."


	3. Chapter 3

The darkspawn had the advantage of the narrow stairs, but they had no Emissary, no organisation, and no experience. Serada gritted her teeth, freed from the fear of the Taint now, and charged them with a roar. The stairs weren't packed yet, and the one advantage of being below them was being able to leverage her height. Two hurlocks tumbled over her back and fell to arrows or blades before they could right themselves, a genlock stumbled and fell beneath her boots. She left it there for Tomas to deal with and ploughed on until she reached a group of hurlock archers. An arrow clattered off her shield and then off the wall beside her, the passage was so narrow, and another whizzed past her ear. They braced for her charge, two of them reaching for daggers instead of their bows, and at the last second she planted her left foot and swung round, throwing her full weight behind he shield and slamming it into them with force. Two went down, the third she ran through with her sword, and Hovard finished the other two off with daggers from the dark.

Behind them, Natia was arranging her forces this side of the lever. Ahead of them, up the stairs, the darkspawn were chittering in rage. They had nearly made it to the lever, nearly got the door open and trapped the meagre patrol between them and the horde arrayed on the other side, with nothing else between them and the exposed mountainside. Serada hefted her shield again and longed once more for her patrol, for Gorrim at her side, Blackstone at her back, and Piotin at her front, and richly spiced in the palace afterwards. The Deep Road to Orzammar called her home, and she wondered... Another arrow shattered against the wall at her side and she threw her shield up. Tomas and Hovard needed instructions, so she snapped them out. "Same again," she told them. "Tomas, cover Hovard. Take them down as you can, and when I tell you to run for the door you run."

"Yes, Ser," Tomas gasped out. He swung his sword in his hand and looked back over his shoulder. "We're not going to..."

Serada didn't let him ask, didn't let him make her say it. "Now," she gritted out instead, and took off again. The darkspawn were more ready for her this time, but it didn't help them. She got a glance ahead before she ducked her head and readied her sword. Two steps below the next archer she pivoted once more and this time thrust her sword forwards, finding her target with vicious accuracy and following it up with a blow to the creature's chest and then a wild swing at the legs of the next darkspawn. Her sword was everite from the mines above Sahrnia and cut through the flimsy armour the darkspawn wore. It cut through bone too. Arrows from behind her cleared her way further and soon she'd gained the guard post and they were through it. There were darkspawn ahead of them on the stairs, heading for the trading post and the doors they'd left wide open. The last one fell to a dagger Hovard flung with all his might from the doorway to the trading post.

"Go," Serada gasped out, pointing to the open door and the stairs beyond. "To Suledin. Bring Sappers, they must bring down the side passages and seal them tight. Close this door, close every door behind you. We'll hold the seal as long as we can, but it may now be long enough."

Hovard stared at her. "You're not going back..."

"Of course I am," she snapped. "I've never left a patrol behind before, and I'm not about to start now. Now get this door shut and then run like our lives depend on it."

Going down was easier, not least because the darkspawn weren't expecting five foot of very angry Aeducan to turn around and charge back the way she'd come. The few who'd given chase quickly regretted their decision as she took the stairs two at a time, drawn down by the Stone with its weight behind her sword and shield at every blow. They crumpled before her, cut down and left shattered on the stair. Still she flew on, down until she reached the guard post and the short, narrow stretch down to Natia. Her heart stopped there when she saw the imposing bulk of a towering ogre filling the stairway, but her step never faltered. With a bellowing cry that echoed down the passages in every direction, she launched herself into the air, turned her sword, and brought it down into the back of the creature's neck.

* * *

A gloved hand inches from her face was the first thing to come into focus, and she glared at it blearily for a while before she finally realised that it was offering her a hand up. When she took it she was pulled to her feet, up and away from the tangle of darkspawn limbs and worse that she'd landed in. Phillippe and Jasalt were shifting bodies between them, dumping them down the stairs whilst Gytha kept watch and Natia looked Serada over. She squirmed under the scrutiny and raised a hand to the back of her head, where a dull throbbing was, regrettably, beginning to resolve into a hot, sharp pain. "I think I hit my head," she said. "Probably when I fell off the ogre."

"Probably," Natia agreed. "What were you thinking?"

She grinned, which only served to darken Natia's already grim expression. "Nothing I'm comfortable translating. But the general gist of it was 'oh no, an ogre'. They're actually pretty easy if you can attack them from above. You didn't have that advantage."

Natia stabbed a finger up the stairs. "You were supposed to go for support. I gave you an order..."

"I got Tomas and Hovard to the exit, and then I came back for you." Serada looked away sharply and rubbed at the back of her head again. "I've never left a patrol behind. Couldn't have looked Tomas in the face if I'd not done something."

"Still..." Natia trailed off. "Thank you. You should have got out of here."

She nodded down at the ogre's slumped corpse. "Good job I didn't, isn't it?"

Above them, Gytha finally let her eyes drift from the passageway from which their trouble had emerged. Her eyes flickered over Serada and then landed on the ogre. "You know, the Wardens of the Fourth Blight and their allies made jewellery from the teeth of ogres they'd killed. Amadis Vael's bracelet is on display at Weisshaupt with Garahel's armour. You could try it."

Serada laughed and was punished for it by a stab of pain behind her eyes. Natia's gloved hand on her shoulder steadied her before she could take a tumble back down the stairs. "I'll pass," she gritted out. "Been killing darkspawn a long time, after all."

"You really did all that, then?" Jasalt asked from below. "You braved the Deep Roads before your Joining?"

She opened her mouth to brush the comments off, but Natia snuck in there first. "I heard you led the mission to reclaim Aeducan Thaig."

"Sort of," she agreed reluctantly. "Not that we reclaimed it. Perhaps in the Thaw..." If Orzammar stood, then Bhelen would surely attempt to reclaim the Thaig, and any others he could push to. She turned her back on the stairs down and made her way back to the guard post. The darkspawn taint crawled over the walls, blotting out the glow from the runes, and now she was attuned to it Serada could feel their presence reaching down the passage from whatever fissure the foul creatures had forced open. She shivered.

"They're regrouping," Natia said close behind her. "We can't let them get through to the Deep Roads."

"Agreed. If they're trying the entrances on this side of the Frostbacks..."

"The Warden Constable will know what to do. Every Warden in Orlais is ranged along the mountains. They'll find no outlet here." She gripped Serada's shoulder again and tried to turn her, but she stood fast. "That was a nasty blow you took. We have some time yet."

Serada smiled grimly. "I've had worse. I'll have worse when they come again."

"Maybe," Natia murmured. "We need to seal that passage up."

"Do you have a score of Sappers and two weeks?"

"No. But I have some explosives." She eyed the passage grimly. "But I might bring the entire place down on us."

Serada rubbed at her jaw. "If we plant them deep enough and retreat into the granite. How long are your fuses?"

"Doesn't matter."

"Natia..."

She sighed. "I could light them and run. Not far, but I could do it. But I don't think I could plant them deep enough and make it back here. I'm willing to take the risk, though. If it closes off those passages."

Gytha shifted closer to them, an eerie-bright smile on her face. "I've got a really, really bad idea. It might work."

* * *

"It's here," Serada told them, when they reached a fork in the passage. One fork led almost straight ahead, level and wide along the seam. The other darted off to their right, just as wide but descending sharply to the first turn of many. Blight crawled over the walls, rotting the marble away into shapes that turned Serada's stomach, and the corruption within the stone was an acid tang on her Stone Sense that pulsed behind her eyes with the headache the ogre had given her. It was almost overwhelming, but not enough that she couldn't tell the difference between the two passages.

Natia looked unsure for a moment, but in the end she nodded and reached round for her pack, not willing to drop it on the floor. "If we plant them right here, it'll block off both passages. The last thing we want to do is open a new one for them," she pointed out. "Are we deep enough?"

Serada nodded. That, at least, she was confident of. "These passages are well-built. The miners knew their work well. It'd take more than a cave-in to threaten the guard post."

"How can you tell?" Gytha asked. "They all look the same to me."

"How can you tell which direction you're facing in a forest?" Serada asked.

"I can't. I was raised in the Circle, not the Dales." She sniffed and looked like she'd regretted it. The smell was overwhelming, after all. "Do you have enough explosives to bring down a passage of this size?"

Natia hefted a package in each hand thoughtfully and nodded. "They'll do. Oh Stone will they do. Do you put your thing down first or do I?"

Gytha pinched the bridge of her nose. "Andraste preserve me. I will lay my glyph after you've laid the explosives. Otherwise your entering it will trigger the trap and all three of us will be buried at best." She stepped pack to let Natia place the two small packages in the middle of the passageway and then, with a look of extreme distaste, crouched and pressed the tips of her fingers to the ground. Beads of light flowed from her fingers, the first one swinging round in a wide circle around the bundle, and then more of them bouncing across it, looping round in smaller circles and arcs to map out a pattern as complex as any runes Serada had seen in the Shaperate. Eventually she got to her feet, wiping her hands on her cloak with a grimace, and stepped back. The glyph spanned the entire corridor, and before their eyes it faded away to almost nothing.

"And that will light the fuses?" Natia checked. "I can't feel anything."

Gytha allowed herself a smug smile. "Oh, that'll light up anything that crosses it. It'd light up an ogre. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be here when that happens. Can you feel..."

"Yes," Serada confirmed. "They're coming. Not many of them. Probably Shrieks. I hate Shrieks."

Natia bumped their shoulders together as they turned. "You hate them all. Back to the granite, before they bring the whole place down on us."

They had almost reached the guard post before the first scream rang down the corridor behind them, much closer than they'd expected. Serada looked back in time to see the passageway light up red and gold and dove for Natia a moment later. The explosion hit them first, heat and dust and poison that thundered against Serada's shield, and then the noise followed with a force that left her ears ringing and light dancing over her eyes from the pain in her head. She was aware of thuds against her shield, and then nothing else until surprisingly gentle hands pulled her to her feet again and away, deeper into the Stone.


	4. Chapter 4

They huddled in the guard post, keeping a wary eye on each of the side passages at all times. The darkspawn presence had withdrawn for now, and the only sounds were the gentle plink of water into a pool somewhere in the darkness, and the occasional groan of the rock settling in the ruined mine tunnels. Natia paced the space, ten steps each way and ten steps back again, shaking her head from time to time as she contemplated and discarded plans. For the most part, Serada was content to let her. The pain was receding, at least, and when she'd staggered to her feet Jasalt had clapped her on the back almost hard enough to level her again and passed her his hipflask, which actually did. He'd laughed, a bellow that echoed in all directions, and told them it was made of herbs. Just herbs. Serada knew better than to ask more. She sat with her back against the wall until the world stopped spinning and tried to root herself in the uncorrupted stone beneath them.

Natia stopped in front of her again and sighed. "If we opened the door to the Deep Roads..."

"The horde would be upon us immediately."

"If we got it open," Natia repeated, "and managed to close it behind us... We can close it from that side but not open it, right?"

Serada nodded sharply. "Wouldn't be much use otherwise."

"Right, so we could make it to the Deep Roads. Could we make it to Orzammar from here?"

She rubbed at her face, careful to avoid her eyes with her filthy gloves. "In theory, of course we could. If we can make Caridin's Cross, from there the road is kept clear. The Legion hold it as far as Bownamar."

Natia sighed. "And in practice?"

"I don't know," Serada admitted. "We tried to push from Caridin's Cross to Zygmunt Thaig, but it was abandoned early on. And that was with the Legion, not Wardens. The darkspawn can sense us as we sense them, there would be no chance of stealth. And honestly, I don't even know if the Roads are passable so far from Orzammar."

Jasalt looked past them to the stairs down to the Deep Roads. "They must be passable somehow. The darkspawn made it, after all."

"Not necessarily from that side," she pointed out. A shiver ran down her spine and she shook her head. "And we have too many women. I'd rather die here than..."

She trailed off and the others stared at her. "Why?" Gytha asked. "Why is being a woman different?"

Serada staggered to her feet again, wishing she'd never said anything. "Whatever your imagination is conjuring for you now, the truth is worse. Leave it, and hope it never comes to pass. Just... don't let them take you alive, not ever." She stared down into the darkness, then wheeled away from it and stomped across to the long flight up to the trading post. "It's always the waiting that's worst."

Light footsteps behind her caught her up quickly, but Natia just dropped her pace to keep up with Serada's stubborn climb. "Tomas and Hovard will be back soon," she said, with cheerful confidence. "They'll have us out of here in no time, I'm sure."

"They'd better," Serada agreed. Despite her best efforts, a smile twitched at one corner of her mouth. "For all the Warden Constable knows, he's got four wet recruits and me guarding the Seal."

Natia's shoulder bumped against hers. "It's a good thing I picked you out, really. Having an experienced campaigner with us made the difference. Not to mention one with stone for brains."

If the stairs hadn't been so well-lit, Serada would have preened at the compliment. From the look on Natia's face, her efforts not to had not been entirely successful. "Good job you brought Gytha, too," she conceded. "I'm willing to admit that magic has its uses, in a pinch. It's not a patch on enchantment or a proper team of sappers..."

"Oh, of course not," Natia agreed, grinning at her more broadly. "But she's not bad for a skygazer."

Serada opened her mouth to say something, but he hadn't worked out what by the time Natia grabbed at her arm. They froze in place, listening carefully, and at last the noises they heard were coming from above. They took the last steps as fast as their feet would carry them and reached the door at almost the same moment. There were voices, lots of them, and movement. Natia pounded on the door and grinned at Serada. "This is Warden Natia," she bellowed, so loud Serada flinched away and she shot the other woman a glare. "It's secure for now. No current darkspawn activity."

They heard something shouted back, but it was too indistinct to make out anything more than that it was the Warden Constable himself. Serada shrugged at Natia and gestured for her to step back from the door. "Hopefully they've worked out that Darkspawn don't reply," she said. "But maybe we should get out of arrow range anyway."

Natia was still laughing when the grinding of ancient gears heralded their rescue, and she waved Serada off to fetch the others up from the guard post as the first crack of light shone between the heavy doors. Gytha, Phillippe and Jasalt were already on their way up to meet her, summoned by Natia's shouting, and she let them pass before following them back up more slowly than she'd made the previous ascent. 

* * *

Back in the trading post she was pulled aside into one of the abandoned buildings by a worried-looking healer, who forced more elfroot tea on her and poked at the impressive lump on the back of her head until the pain faded away. Still they wouldn't let her go until she'd downed her entire cup of tea and reeled off her entire family tree back to Paragon Aeducan, because apparently her lack of knowledge on the ruler of Orlais was concerning.

Natia was sitting on the edge of the fountain in the middle of the square, hands wrapped around a mug of something that steamed around her face and talking to the Warden Constable. She nodded seriously in acknowledgement of something he'd said and looked over to the house where Serada had been treated, mouth open to make some comment. When she saw Serada standing there, though, she beckoned her over with a grin. "I told you her Stone Sense would be vital down here," she told the Warden Constable firmly, like it was the continuation of an old argument. "And there's not many raw recruits can say they've already killed enough ogres to furnish a decent set of jewels."

"Hardly that many," Serada told her gruffly. "Maybe a pair of earrings."

The Warden Constable looked down at her and turned his thoughts over in his mind for long enough to make her uncomfortable. He couldn't keep his silence like King Endrin, though, and she waited him out with an impression of patience she didn't feel until he nodded at her and, she thought, almost smiled. "Warden Hovard told us you sent him and Tomas for help and went back to save the rest of your patrol."

"Yes, Warden Constable."

"And ordered them to seal the doors behind them?"

She forced herself not to flinch. "If we had fallen, those doors would have been the only defence against the Horde. Better we get trapped down here than they didn't."

"That was quick thinking." He inclined his head again and stepped back, dismissing them. "I'll let you make for the surface. The sappers are at work below, finishing off what you started. We'll seal those passages and station Wardens here as a precaution."

Natia looked over at her quickly. "I think I speak for both of us, Warden Constable, when I say we'd volunteer for that post. And that neither of us is in any great rush to return to the surface," she added with a chuckle.

He returned her smile at last. "Ah, of course. Perhaps when this Blight is over we'll finally forge stronger ties between the Wardens and Orzammar."

"I think that would be an advantage to both," Serada agreed. Recent history caught up with her and she sighed but managed a smile at Natia. "Warden Natia is sister-in-law to the future King. Perhaps she could intercede."

He acknowledged that thoughtfully, and finally walked away to leave them to their peace and quiet. Serada took a seat on the fountain and closed her eyes, letting the weight of stone above and around them settle here. She could still feel, distantly, the scratching presence of the darkspawn clawing their way towards the surface, inch by inch. It was a far distant feeling to the thrum of the Stone, the creaking of bedding planes deep in the mountain, and the inexorable creep of water down through the rock towards the underground rivers and lakes where it would lie for ages to come.

"You know, the Avvar believe that the Frostback Mountains were raised by one of their gods to guard his heart," Natia said at length. She was looking at Serada out of the corner of her eye, but her gaze darted away when Serada turned to her. "Apparently he blamed love for all the world's ills, and thought he was better off without it."

Serada grunted. "Is it still there?"

"No. He went a bit mad and killed a lot of people, so the other gods fetched his heart and made sure he could never be without it again. There was a bird, I think." She shrugged. "There had been a lot of ale by that point, I wasn't really listening. The Avvar have some good stories though."

"I like the elves' story about the wolf and the wedding," Serada admitted. "Have you read The Dasher's Men?"

Natia laughed. "No. Can't read. What's it about?"

"It's about the Carta. Very... dramatic, if you like that sort of thing." She shrugged. "I could teach you, if you wanted. To read, I mean. I'd have to get new copies, though. My father probably had all of mine destroyed. He never did approve of Tethras. Or anything, really." Her fingers closed around the tile of the fountain. "I feel like that god sometimes. The one who got rid of his heart and built mountains rather than deal with his problems."

"I thought he reminded me of someone."

Serada laughed. "That's why you brought him up?" She sighed and looked up at the rock above them. "Do you miss your sister?"

"Yes. All the time. Bhelen said that once he's king I can write to her. I didn't tell him I can't read." She shrugged. "Do you miss your family?"

"Nobles don't have family. We have bargaining chips and rivals. I miss my friends, though, especially Gorrim. I never meant for him to get caught up in my mess, but why would that mess be any different from the rest?"

"No wonder you're..."

Serada turned to look at Natia again and raised an eyebrow at the way she was worrying her lip. "What am I?"

"More fun when you think you're going to die. You seemed to enjoy the darkspawn in the end."

She laughed bitterly. "You mean when I stop being the daughter of kings and become the daughter of warriors?"

Natia rolled her eyes. "When you stop being anyone's daughter and just become yourself. I quite like her, when she deigns to show her face." She bumped their shoulders together again. "And I think other people would too, if you let them."

* * *

They were eventually ushered back to Suledin, but only after the best night's sleep Serada had had since reaching the surface, in one of the abandoned houses in the trading post. The surface seemed even colder and more barren after the shelter of the Deep Roads, and the road was an uneven trudge through the snow and ice. It plunged down into the valley to the Elfblood River and then climbed steeply to Sahrnia and up through the mountain passages to the Keep. Even at the Keep, their climb wasn't over yet. Onwards and upwards through snow-clad courtyards and under tumbledown arches, and everywhere they went people stared at them. At her. She ducked her head and cringed away from the scrutiny, feet dragging through the snow. Finally they reached the courtyard at the very top of the Keep, so far above the valley bottom that Serada felt sick just thinking about it, and came to a stop outside the Warden Constable's tent.

There was a buzz of chatter around the courtyard, like the atmosphere before a Proving. Wardens poured in, mugs of steaming mulled wine or cider in their hands, and someone brought a tray full of them for the returning patrol. Serada downed one and felt it burn like her embarrassment as she finally realised what was going on. Natia's grins in her direction weren't helping her blushes either.

At long last the Warden Constable re-emerged from his tent, and an expectant hush fell over the crowd. He started by telling them all what the patrol had found, the vulnerability of the seal, the press of darkspawn against it, the breach in the side passage that had almost allowed the darkspawn horde to pour out of the mountain into Orlais. He explained Hovard and Tomas’s frantic race against time to Suledin Keep to raise the alarm, their determination to return for their patrol. And then he turned to Serada and a chill shot through her. "Wardens Tomas and Hovard made it to the surface thanks to the experience and the bravery of their comrade, Warden Serada. Not only did she ensure that they made it to Suledin with warning, but she also made sure that the way was sealed behind them whilst she went back to save her patrol. Warden Natia tells me that without your timely return, our situation would now be far more dire than we find it." He held up a small brooch, and the roar of the crowd almost drowned him out. "It is therefore my honour to award you with the Silverite Wings of Valour."

The rushing in her ears downed out even the crowd, more intense than she'd felt at any Proving, and she stumbled through accepting it with the Wardens' oath. Natia clapped her on the back when it was done, the first of many to do so, and her eyes lit up with a smile when Serada could only stare at her. She was vaguely aware that there was more Natia had been promoted to the position of Warden Sergeant, Serada was the first assigned to her command, they would set up a station in the trading post and hold it throughout the Blight. When the Blight was over, if not before, the Wardens of Orlais were going to strengthen their ties with Orzammar. The Empress, Celene apparently, would be informed and would surely want to honour the patrol herself.

Serada spoke to more Wardens that evening than she had in all the months she'd been at Suledin, and lost track of the number of drinks that were pressed into her hands. The tension had broken like a storm. The darkspawn threat was no longer remote, but neither was it insurmountable. They could be beaten and driven back. Even if the horde crossed the mountains, even if Ferelden fell, the Blight could be beaten.

Serada escaped to the edge of the celebration as fast as she could and watched from behind the edge of a tent. Jasalt and Hovard were in the middle of the throng, drinking and singing with the rest. On the other side of the square Gytha sat with a group of elves, bundled in furs and laughing over wine and cheese with fire wrapped around their hands to keep them warm. Tomas and Phillippe were somewhere in there, she could hear them laughing. And Natia, of course, was at her elbow, cheeks pink from the cold and from laughing, eyes bright with it. "Well, there's something," she said, flicking the brooch the Warden Constable had fixed to Serada's cloak. "You'll have to put that somewhere safer or you'll lose it."

"I didn't want awards," she grumbled. "That's not why I went back."

"I know." Natia beamed at her anyway, and it became a bit less annoying. "Come on, let's get out of here. Why do they always want to be so high?"

Serada laughed at last. "They just live their lives upside down; they can't help it. Everyone knows that the higher up you go, the worse your company."

"Well," Natia said, looping her arm through Serada's, "while that may be true in general, there's always the odd individual who defies the rule."


End file.
